The Real-Time Intelligence Center is a room in Asheville where police watch feeds and data from across the city on a video wall, in real time, and the software layer underneath it.
The short version
Think of it as a hub with spokes. The hub is Fusus, a platform owned by Axon (the taser and body-camera company, which bought Fusus in 2024 for $240 million). The spokes are every camera and sensor the platform can reach:
- 11 Flock license plate readers already scanning across Asheville, about 3.1 million plates read through December 2025 (the chief’s August 2026 memo dates the Flock system to February 2025; earlier coverage said April 2024)
- Axon body cameras and car cameras on every officer and cruiser
- Roughly two dozen police drones
- Private security cameras: businesses, churches, and homeowners are invited to “register” cameras or install a device that gives police live streaming access to them. The county’s version of this network already includes ~1,500 cameras inside schools.
Fusus markets this as “one pane of glass”: everything, one screen, live.
What it costs
- $1.14 million in federal money (an earmark Rep. Chuck Edwards secured after city staff requested it in 2024; council was not informed, request 14), covering the video wall (~$400K) and buildout
- A 7.5-year contract with Axon running to 2033, bundling Fusus software (~$467K over the term), body cameras, tasers, drones, and cloud storage
- Ongoing operational costs (~$250K), plus renewal pricing not yet set. At the May 12 hearing, a resident who negotiates contracts professionally noted Axon publishes its terms and customers “sign what is on the page”; another documented Axon’s ~25%-per-year price escalation pattern, which Axon itself calls its “Flywheel of Growth.”
What it can do
Data from Asheville’s plate readers was shared with law enforcement agencies within a 500-mile, multi-state radius until August 2026, when APD narrowed sharing to Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia (the chief’s Aug 14, 2026 memo). Retention is set at 30 days in APD’s policy (state law allows 90); Flock’s own portal for APD showed 21 days on August 21, 2026, and the chief’s August 14 memo confirms the cut to 21 days, a cut in authorized searchers from 18 to 12, and sharing narrowed to Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia. The same memo counts 86 Flock cameras in Buncombe County, 11 of them the city’s, and says APD is evaluating “consolidating the BCSO RTIC into the APD RTIC,” which would fold the county’s network into this one. The county’s plate readers, which APD also reaches, have no retention number shorter than the statute’s 90 (Buncombe County).
The RTIC’s stated purpose is responding to violent crime. Nothing in the approved package structurally limits it to that. What limits exist are APD policies: self-written, self-administered, and changeable without a council vote. See the Promise Tracker for every commitment APD has made on the record, and its status.
What the county’s version of this does all day is now on the record: the Sheriff’s Office’s own Fusus audit log (January 2024 to May 2026) shows 58 percent of camera viewing on public housing, 30 percent on schools, and 95 to 99 percent of it live monitoring rather than recorded playback (Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office Fusus access log, 2024 to 2026).
What the city has said it will not do
- Facial recognition: APD says it will not be used, and the civil-liberties resolution (26-97) contains an exclusion. But a resolution is not an ordinance: no enforcement mechanism, no penalty, reversible by any future council in a single vote, and the signed contract neither authorizes nor prohibits facial recognition (the contract, as signed). GAP of Asheville asked for an enforceable ban on May 11, 2026.
- Federal/ICE access: APD says data won’t be shared with immigration enforcement without a court order, and that search terms related to immigration and reproductive care are blocked. These blocks are APD-administered keyword filters; nationally, equivalent safeguards have been circumvented in documented cases with vague search entries, and ICE has reached identical systems through informal requests to neighboring agencies.
- Independent oversight: none exists. The “civil liberties resolution” attached to the vote states the technology will be used “solely for lawful purposes.” It is a statement of intent, not an ordinance. It creates no enforcement mechanism, no reporting duty to the public, and no consequences.
Who runs it
APD, under Interim Chief Jackie Stepp, with quarterly internal audits. The center is expected fully operational spring/summer 2027. Public tours run every other Thursday, 2–4 PM (828-259-5881).
Our concern is accountability and oversight, not cameras as such; the position is stated in full on the homepage. The RTIC was approved late in the May 12, 2026 meeting without the executed contract on the table, and each safeguard attached to it is a department policy.
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